Abstract:

This dissertation focuses on the Oper Frankfurt, a musical institution that has played an influential role in the development of operatic staging since the 1980s. Through an examination of productions staged at the house in two different periods (1979 â€“ 1987 and 2010 â€“ 2015), I pay particular attention to the ways in which these contemporary stagings contribute to a discourse about recent operaâ€” particularly in Germanyâ€” and what has frequently been called Regietheater. This polemical term, often translated as â€œdirectorâ€™s theater,â€ connotes a provocative, theatrically experimental, even massively reenvisioned reading of an operatic work, propelled by a visionary stage director. Using a broad analytical approach that examines not only what David Levin has called the â€œperformance text,â€ but also the specific creative context in Frankfurt, I question the utility of that term. Although charismatic directors like Hans Neuenfels and Ruth Berghaus are important within this history, my analyses make clear that production texts staged in Frankfurt since the 1980s exhibit a conception of authorship more multiplistic and collaborative than the director-centric notion taken for granted within music scholarship, the opera industry, and the media. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the staging trends visible in recent productionsâ€”even the most radicalâ€”are not necessarily coupled with a novel conceptual apparatus advanced by a willful director. As my analyses destabilize the relevance of the Regietheater label, other meaningful patterns emerge that I argue are more germane to comprehending developments in opera production since the late 20th century. My study is divided into two parts that parallel the periods profiled at the opera house: the â€œGielen Eraâ€ and the last five years of the present administration. The first portion introduces my multilayered methodology, then examines radical stagings of the 1980s. The second half explores productions of the last decade and considers authorial voice, venue, experimentation and aura. In conclusion, I draw attention beyond a simple notion of Regietheater to more productive questions about todayâ€™s stagings, thus revealing an expansion of the parameters that define the operatic genre.